Dutch Security Agencies Warn AI Is Amplifying Cyber Threats

Summary

A joint statement from the Netherlands’ National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security, National Cyber Security Centre, General Intelligence and Security Service, Defence Intelligence and Security Service, Public Prosecution Service, CIO Rijk and Police warns that artificial intelligence will increase the number, scale and complexity of cyberattacks against government and society. The organisations say inadequate defences have already caused prolonged outages of critical systems and the theft of names, addresses and citizen service numbers, creating privacy and financial consequences. They urge senior leaders to provide appropriate resources, prioritise cybersecurity and give security experts the authority to improve national resilience. The statement calls for organisations to get basic security measures in order and take AI-related signals seriously. According to NCSC CEO Matthijs van Amelsfort, AI can automate the cyberattack chain from vulnerability discovery to exploitation. It also lowers the barrier to entry for a wider range of malicious actors, allowing attacks to become faster, more advanced and harder to detect. The agencies stress that attackers do not need frontier models; existing, readily accessible AI systems can already support these operations. They argue that digital security must therefore become a shared leadership responsibility across public- and private-sector organisations, rather than a narrow concern of IT departments and CISOs.